Facebook's stock: Insiders can now start selling (pictures)
Starting tomorrow, Facebook insiders will be able to start selling some of their pre-IPO shares. Here are seven big holders.
Paul Sloan
Paul Sloan is editor in chief of CNET News. Before joining CNET, he had been a San Francisco-based correspondent for Fortune magazine, an editor at large for Business 2.0 magazine, and a senior producer for CNN. When his fingers aren't on a keyboard, they're usually on a guitar. Email him here.
Thiel made a big bet on Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 when he put $500,000 into Facebook, becoming one of the first outside investors in the social network. He cashed out $640 million in the IPO -- at a price more than 40 percent above where the stock trades now -- and it's never easy to sell a stock when it was worth so much more just a few months ago. We wouldn't expect him to immediately dump his holdings, but who knows. He could gradually start letting some go.
2 of 7Wikipedia/Bkahvedzic
James Breyer and Accel Partners
Breyer, with Accel Partners, courted Zuckerberg hard and eventually got him to agree to take a $12.7 million investment that valued the company at $93 million. What a bet that turned out to be. Accel already sold $2.1 billion worth of stock into the IPO, so selling more soon doesn't seem like an obvious move. It still owns 35.7 million Class A shares, and 7.9 million Class B shares.
3 of 7Greg Sandoval/CNET
Bono and Elevation Partners
Bono is a partner at Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley venture firm that's had its share of struggles, such as its investment in Palm. And then there's its Facebook bet, which it made in 2009. Elevation sold $176 million worth of stock at the IPO but still has 35.5 million Class B shares that it might be eager to get rid of.
4 of 7James Martin/CNET
Microsoft
Steve Ballmer tried to buy Facebook outright in 2007 for $15 billion, but Mark Zuckerberg wasn't interested. Instead, Microsoft's CEO scored a deal in which Microsoft invested $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake. Microsoft cashed in $249 million at the IPO but still holds 26.2 million Class B shares. The company wants to do more, not less, with Facebook, so it seems unlikely that cash-rich Microsoft will start selling.
5 of 7Screenshot by CNET
Yuri Milner
The Russian tycoon Yuri Milner wooed Zuckerberg in 2009 and made an investment that's already paid off big time. He's cashed out more than $1.7 billion at the IPO, and might be looking to shed some more, especially considering that two of his other big bets -- Zynga and Groupon -- are cratering. His investment firm, DST Global, still owns 80.6 million Class B shares, and 5 million Class A.
6 of 7Rafe Needleman/CNET
Mark Pincus
Pincus, the CEO of Zynga, was an angel investor in Facebook, having put up $40,000 alongside investments by Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman. He recently took some stock off the table -- to the tune of $38.9 million -- but he still owns 4.3 million Class B shares. And Pincus has been in a selling mood of late. He's being sued for selling shares of Zynga at $12 a share just before the stock started to tank. It wouldn't be surprising to see Pincus dump more Facebook stock, and fast.
7 of 7James Martin/CNET
Reid Hoffman
The LinkedIn founder, who invested in Zuckerberg early on, put in only $40,000, partly because he was building his own social network. He cashed out $36 million at the IPO but still sits on 3.8 million Class B shares. He seems unlikely to run for the exit.